His car was found burnt out on the side of the road and after
months of searching, his family believed he was dead––or simply
didn't want to be found.

"It was just so traumatic for everyone," his daughter Jennifer
said. "It really affected me emotionally. People would ask
'where's your dad?'. It was too much, too painful."

It was a hunch by a detective that led to a Medicare record under
Nagy's name that solved the mystery earlier this year. According
to his family, Nagy had suffered a form of amnesia
called Dissociative Fugue, which was likely caused
during the accident that wrecked his car.

The disorder erases huge periods of time from an individual's
memory. In Nagy's case, 46 years of his life as a father of two
and husband vanished.

"People with dissociative fugue temporarily lose their sense of
personal identity and impulsively wander or travel away from
their homes or places of work," according to the Cleveland Clinic. Often, it's caused by
severe stress from a traumatic event.